300 words: Anxiety

For me anxiety comes in two flavours. Both are equally impactful in their own attention grabbing ways.

In the last twelve months, since I returned to working for myself, they’ve made themselves known at least ever couple of weeks. Reducing anxiety is a focus for me in 2019.

The first flavour of anxiety I experience is a spike. An chest-tightening worry which can last up to two hours. It makes doing anything very difficult.

The second is a mild background anxiety which continually pulls my attention back to it and has been known to ruin time with family, friends and even my sleep.

I’ve got a good idea of the different triggers for the two.

Spike anxiety is caused by a sudden realisation, or discovery of something I didn’t do, or didn’t get quite right.

If you’ve ever experienced the “heart-sinking” feeling of forgetting something important, then it’s just like that, but doesn’t stop after the usual second or two.

Mild background anxiety comes at me slowly. It builds up as I dwell on something that wouldn’t be a problem if I weren’t to build it up in my head.

Dealing with them is less of a science than I would like.

Spike anxiety comes from nowhere, and the best defence I’ve found against it is to take action on the thing causing it as quickly as I can.

That could mean contacting somebody, putting a reminder in my diary or writing some notes to help make sense of the worry.

Mild background anxiety is more of a battle. To halt it I have to stop my brain from dwelling on the thought for long enough to bring the focus of it back down to size. So a good positive distraction is required.

That might be a good tv program, singing along to music I know well, a phone call which requires focus.

Long term, I think it’s possibly to reduce my general anxiety by changing things in my life, and working to be calmer and more considered when things do come along.

For me, this might mean avoiding some situation, and even people. Beyond that possibly meditation or other mindfulness techniques.